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ABLE

I came across this link while searching for programming languages related to accounting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABLE_programming_language.

Unfortunately the link is a bit of a dead-end. None of the Wikipedia links lead anywhere useful.

Has anyone every heard of ABLE before? Or better yet programmed in it?

Does anyone have links to sites that might reference this lanuage? Google seems to know nothing about ABLE.

Back to my original search, are there any languages you are aware of that are focused on accounting?

By tomaco at 2005-10-19 12:46 | LtU Forum | previous forum topic | next forum topic | other blogs | 5213 reads

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Referential transparency

I followed the reference [SIGPLAN Notices 13(11):56] and it led me to a Roster of programming languages for 1976-77 (ACM Digital Library access required for full text) by Jean E. Sammet of IBM's Federal Systems Division:

This roster contains a list of currently existing high-level languages which (a) have been developed or reported in the United States; (b) have been implemented on at least one general-purpose computer; and (c) are believed to be in use in the United States by someone other than the developer.

The very first language listed (of 166 total) is, of course, ABLE®. The listing appeared as follows:

+ABLE®
A very simple language (and program) designed for use by accountants. The operations are very simple and look very much like assembly code operations except that they refer to accounting registers and other activities used by accountants. Translator is written in COBOL.
Implemented on:
Honeywell 200, IBM System 3, 360. [ed: is "System 3" a typo?]
Ref:
ABLE®, The Accounting Language®, Programming and Reference Manual, Evansville Data Processing Corp., 1010 South Weinbach Avenue, Evansville, IN 47714 (March 1975).
Contact:
Nathan I. Lieberman, address above.
Application Area:
Accounting.

Among other interesting things in this report, there is this:

Stated briefly, a programming (=high-level) language is defined as a set of characters and rules for combining them which has the following characteristics:
  1. the language requires no knowledge of machine code by the user;
  2. the language is significantly independent of a particular computer;
  3. there is a one-many translation of instructions from source code to object code; and
  4. the notation of the language is fairly natural to its problem area and is not a fixed tabular format. (This criterion is more subjective than the other three and is evaluated by the users in the problem area.)
By Sean Leather at Thu, 2005-10-20 01:20 | login or register to post comments

Thanks for the info.

Sean, thanks.

Guess maybe I should dig into the wallet and get a membership to the ACM.

By tomaco at Thu, 2005-10-20 03:41 | login or register to post comments

You're welcome!

It's unfortunate that no more information is available than that. It also appears that Evansville Data Processing no longer exists and that something else has moved in. I guess alot can happen in 30 years.

Guess maybe I should dig into the wallet and get a membership to the ACM.

Eh, it's just one of those rare benefits to being a student. Many universities have ACM accounts so you get unrestricted access when you visit the site from the campus network. You could perhaps visit your nearest neighboring educational institute.

By Sean Leather at Thu, 2005-10-20 04:57 | login or register to post comments